


Beloved

by nothingeverlost



Category: Sleeping Beauty (Fairy Tale)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 11:27:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingeverlost/pseuds/nothingeverlost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I will look after my own kingdom.”  Cara raised her chin but she knew there was nothing to be done.  Her mother had not chosen her father, and one day her own child might be bartered off just as easily.  She was a woman, and such was her lot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beloved

**Author's Note:**

> A birthday gift for my dear Keenquing. A different version of Sleeping Beauty. Or at least a start to it; more of an origin story.

When Cara was a child her mother called her Beloved. Her father, craving a son more than anything, called her Bo. For a time it was enough, to call her by a boy’s name and teach her to ride and shoot arrows, but when Cara’s form began to change it was a rude reminder that he had failed to produce an heir. His wife with her stubborn womb had denied him what he most wanted.

There was only one way to get the son he needed; her father fought a battle and brought home a warrior, a man strong and handsome, clever but desperate enough to join his own small kingdom with a larger land. Hadrian was to be Cara’s husband, and she his chattel.

Cara’s mother made her a fine dress of pearl grey and assured her that it was simply the way of the world. Women were daughters and then wives, and if they were blessed mothers as well. Men ruled the world and women had their smaller kingdoms in the running of a house and the raising of sons and daughters. But at night when Cara passed her mother’s solar she heard her mother praying and weeping.

“I won’t marry,” Cara said, but no one listened.

“I will be no man’s wife,” she swore but the wedding was planned and the chapel decorated with flowers.

“I will see Hadrian clutching his chest and falling down dead before he touches me,” she vowed as she was escorted to the chapel by her father. Her mother was too ill to attend, and had kissed her gently on the cheek before lowering the veil. It was the last time her mother would touch her, though she did not know it then.

“Your features are pleasing, your manners graceful and you sing like a lark, daughter. You will make him a good wife and he will look after you and this kingdom when I am gone.” 

“I will look after my own kingdom.” Cara raised her chin but she knew there was nothing to be done. Her mother had not chosen her father, and one day her own child might be bartered off just as easily. She was a woman, and such was her lot.

She looked to the floor, not the man waiting for her at the altar, and so was the last to see her intended clutch his chest in a rush of pain. The collective gasp drew her attention first; by the time she knew what was happening Hadrian was on the floor. The royal doctor was the one to declare him dead.

Her wedding became a funeral twice over, when servants were sent to inform her mother of the tragedy and found that she too had breathed her last. Cara had her dress and veil dyed black, not out of respect for the man that would never control her, but for the mother who had given her life and had once whispered to her innocent daughter that she had faery’s blood in her veins.

“I will be no man’s wife.” The vow held. Her father tried once more to have her betrothed, but when a second died there were no more offers. Some said that Cara work black morning for the husband she would never wed or the children she would never bear. They did not know her.

When her mother died there was no one to remind her that she was Beloved. With her father’s death the kingdom was hers, but not the people. They looked at her like a strange and foreign thing, not one of their own. Carabosse, they whispered. Some called her witch. Some, black faery.

II

“She will be beautiful. She will dance. She will sing as a lark.” No one thought to invite her to the christening of a new princesses. The faeries were there, offering their gifts, grooming the girl child to be all that a man wanted when the time came. She was only days old, the girl they called after the dawn, and yet they’ve written her future.

They thought she cursed the child with her talk of spindles at the eve of her sixteenth birthday, and gasped in horror. They did not see that it was a blessing as she bent over the babe’s bassinet and whispered a promise. No man shall claim her. She will have her freedom.

The child was whisked away, cosseted inside an old abbey with three faeries to protect her. They thought her safe, because all the spindles are burned. Cara knew her safe, because she grew up in the company of only women and wild creatures. She danced barefoot in the wild grasses and bathed in the waters of a small lake. And sometimes she talked to the woman who lived at the edge of the woods, the woman who called herself Bo.

And they became friends. And perhaps, in time, something more than friends.


End file.
